


Praxeus

by SHADOWSQUILL



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternative Timeline, Episode: s12e06 Praxeus, F/F, F/M, Major Character Injury, Major Illness, Major character death - Freeform, Nine does come around briefly, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, alternative doctor, cyberDoctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHADOWSQUILL/pseuds/SHADOWSQUILL
Summary: "Protecting Earth was a vow she had made a long time ago. It was a second home to her and humans were among her best friends. Humans were amazing, impressive, astonishing. Clever little humans. That was to protect them that she had divided her fam, that she had been running all day."
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Companion(s)
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh, I’m a sucker for a scientist!” huffed the Doctor after Suki Cheng teleported herself away from the imminent danger.

She had been too slow to notice her, too busy trying to save the British astronaut from this alien pathogen infecting and killing humans. _Her_ humans. Protecting Earth was a vow she had made a long time ago. It was a second home to her and humans were among her best friends. Humans were amazing, impressive, astonishing. Clever little humans. That was to protect them that she had divided her fam, that she had been running all day. She hadn’t even had the time to sit down and think about her destroyed home her other self she knew nothing about running around. They were serious troubles and she had pushed them and she had pushed them away for the sake of her human companions who hadn’t been the best with her lately. She remarked everything about them, but they were being careless about her. Not that she was open about her feelings.

“Where did she go?” asked Jake.

She was so frustrated about Suki Cheng vanishing into thin air that she had forgotten about the other persons in the room with her. They were all looking around, terrified. There was no time to ponder though. The birds were squawking outside and the deafening noise intensified with every millisecond.

“We need to get out of here.”

Everyone was on the edge; anyone could snap and go wild. She needed them to stay calm. They wouldn’t be able to remain their small shelter. Worse than the angry squawking, the sudden silence set all her alarms off. It was abnormal.

“Have they gone?”

There was a hope about to be crushed in Jake’s voice. Graham and Ryan’s experience of travelling with the Doctor had taught them that problems never solved themselves on their own, that threats never just disappeared before it could get what it wanted. Jake didn’t know that. Jake could only have hope about this situation that was above his head.

The birds were preparing their next move. Everyone in the small laboratory jumped when the window of the ceiling shattered under the birds’ attack. They all crouched as the black birds filled the room and squawked louder. The Doctor screamed.

“Doc, come on!”

“Take cover!”

She was crouched on the ground. Everyone else was trying to hide and her only goal was to reach the samples. If she didn’t get them, she wouldn’t be able to make a cure and humanity would be left to die. She was fighting the endless flow of birds flying through the broken window. She heard Jake’s voice calling over for them all to leave the small building before it got worse but she hadn’t reached her goal yet.

“We need to get out,” she repeated. “Don’t let them scratch you, they’ll infect you!” The warning was useless to the humans. They were already hurrying out, protecting themselves the best they could. She was the one putting herself in danger. “I need to get the samples!”

“Doctor, come on!”

The Doctor was the only person who could save Adam from the virus eating him out. It was a certitude for Jake. For that reason, the meaningless human he thought he was wanted her to get out of here with them instead of becoming a living target for angry birds.

“This is why I don’t go aboard!” he grumbled. “Let’s go!”

She heard Graham calling her name and caught the paddle he was throwing her way. A paddle that miraculously made it through the crowd of flying birds. She used it to grab the samples and ran outside the building, following her human companions. Running in the sand wasn’t an easy thing but she was tough. She was used to running on worse fields, in worse circumstances.

“Head straight for the TARDIS, quick as you can.”

“They’ve seen us! They’re following!”

“Just keep running!”

Their objective was the TARDIS that was just feet away from them. It had never seemed this far but they made it in time. She reached the doors, pushed them open, pushed everyone inside. Ryan was last. She encouraged him to go faster, closed the door behind him and ran to the console. The birds crashed down on the blue box as the Doctor pushed down a lever to dematerialise the ship. Everyone was trying to catch their breath. Not her. There was no time for catching breath. She pressed the commdot on her neck, made a face.

“Yaz, we’re on our way? Locked in on your commdot signal. We’re coming for you wherever you are.”

No one was up for a briefing now but the Doctor’s brains were working hard and fast to find how the Praxeus was working and find a cure to this disease that was infecting and killing people faster than her flow of thoughts. It was quite something considering the rapidity of her brains.

“If Praxeus is being spread by birds, it could get around the world incredibly fast, attacking and infecting every living thing.” She walked to a structure of the TARDIS and inserted a box inside. The ship would analyse the samples and figure out an antidote to Praxeus. Possibly. “We may potentially have a cure, but we don’t know if it works.”

Once again, she should have seen it but her mind was assaulted with thoughts of consequences if it didn’t work. Adam volunteered to test the antidote and bickered with Jake about it. She agreed with the former police officer. It was too dangerous to test on the sick astronaut. He had nothing to lose now that he was sick to this point.

“You said yourself there’s no time. You need a clinical trial, a human body and now you’ve got one.”

Another couple of lost minutes in arguing before she finally gave in, much to Jake’s displeasure. It was Adam’s choice. He was sacrificing himself for the rest of humanity. Another human trait that was fascinating her and making her admire this race more and more. She knelt down beside him, sonic in hand.

“Bioreadings synced with the TARDIS. If the antidote works on you, the TARDIS will make more. Sure?”

“Stop faffing about.”

The Doctor injected the antidote in Adam’s hand. The sonic whirred, Adam gasped. The TARDIS whooshed, announcing that she had landed near Yaz’ latest location. The Time Lady didn’t check the scans of the place. She asked the married couple to stay inside the TARDIS and rushed out of the TARDIS followed by her faithful companions Ryan and Graham.

“Yaz! Found you.”

She was quite happy to find her after partying ways to continue the investigation. Yaz had been brilliant. Finding this place on her own and staying alive! Not all of her companions could boast about such an achievement. Her reaction to her enthusiasm was frankly cold.

“Thanks for coming to get us. Eventually.”

“Look at you, going off on your own and not getting killed.”

“Plus, totally found an alien colony.”

The Doctor scanned the place with her sonic and her next answer added more to Yaz’ mardy mood. She was supposed to be the moody one – but she had her own reasons that she hadn’t shared – but right now, she was being the optimistic one. She was being supportive and all she was getting in return was disappointment and distance.

They were a long way below the Indian Ocean that was covered by a gyre of plastic pollution. Very earthly. Earth had five major gyres at the moment. Praxeus was attracted to plastic. It had built a whole environment there from the plastic. It had become a world of pure Praxeus! That was where everything started. Seabirds infected with Praxeus transported the bacteria around the world, transferring it to humans when they attack.

However, it wasn’t the only thing hidden in this secret place. First, there was this person in a hazmat suit that Yaz found earlier. The Doctor removed the mask and revealed a humanoid face covered with Praxeus scales.

“Humanoid. But not human. Infected with Praxeus, but the body hasn’t disintegrated. Must be due to the different biology.”

“I don’t get it. Why were these guys experimenting on Adam?”

“Maybe for the same reasons we are. To find a cure.”

They travelled through the debris, through the remains of a seemingly human life, trying to find answers to why the humanoid aliens would hide in there. The person holding the responses came out of an airlock just before them. She was surprised to see them all gathered there.

“Going somewhere? Who were they, Suki? The infected people in the hazmat suits?”

“My crew. I’m the last one left.”

“Wait,” intervened Gabriela who was quite lost among all those space and alien specialists, “that’s a spaceship, right?”

“Well, the back end of one, yes,” replied the Doctor.

“Just when I thought things couldn’t get any madder.” Suki pointed a weapon on them. “Whoa!”

“How did you get there?”

“I was going to ask you the same question, but I presume that ship is how. So the question is why?”

“Praxeus devastated my planet. The survivors were assigned to lab ships to find an antidote for the few of us alive.”

“You’re infected too.”

“Cellular mutation is slower for us.”

“If you’re scientists in lab ships, please tell me you didn’t bring this infection here deliberately.”

“Praxeus breeds in plastic, and this planet is saturated in it. We travelled across three galaxies to find the perfect living laboratory.”

Now, the Doctor was really pissed. It wasn’t the first time aliens had come around and used humans for experiments but she couldn’t remember a time when they brought a lethal disease with no cure on her favourite planet. There was no excuse to use a race to save another.

“To use Earth as a Petri dish, destroying one race to save the remnants of your own. But this down here, this environment, it wasn’t deliberate.”

“We lost control of the shuttle on entry. Crash landed. Bacteria flooded out, irradiated, formed this world.

“And a broken spacecraft sending out pulses of energy from the bottom of the ocean was enough to down and frazzle a returning space capsule. This is the centre of where everything’s been happening!” Finally, the Doctor noticed the scratch on Suki’s arm. “You’ve been scratched by those birds. You’ve had a double dose of Praxeus.”

“But you showed how to find a cure! Thanks to you, my mission was successful. They already have the transmission of how the cure could work.”

“No! suki, the cure is designed for humans, and we don’t even know if it works on them. If you’re not human, who knows what will happen? Please, tell me you haven’t administered it on yourself.”

For all answer, Suki ran away from them, back to the airlock she had left minutes ago. The Doctor ran after her. Her team was ordered to stay behind and not to intervene. This was between her and Suki. She had grown fond of the young woman ever since she met her on that beach in Madagascar and she didn’t want her to end tragically. She was a good woman who had been unlucky. A woman who didn’t want help according to the weapon she was aiming at the Doctor scanning the ship with the sonic screwdriver.

“Get out of here!”

“I wouldn’t use that in here. Not with those reverse pulse proton engines. Very unreliable. No wonder you crashed.”

“Put that thing down!”

“Sortable though. Organic fuel cells. Oh! Hang on. I’m having half a thought. Ooh! This one tickles. What is it? Oh yes! You can store anything in organic fuel cells, anything vaguely organic! Look at us, Suki. Two brilliant scientists we can fix this! Work together, find a cure for you, and then, we can stop Earth from being taken over by Praxeus!”

Her enthusiasm was crushed by the sudden crunch that hit her ears. Suki was panicking, and not for nothing. The scales on her arm were progressing quickly, too quickly to be stopped. The infection was spreading and there was nothing possible to save her now.

“What’s happening to me? It’s spreading! How do I stop it? Help me!”

The Doctor was powerless. She could only watch her new friend being eating out by Praxeus until her whole body was covered in ivory scales, until she was disintegrated into a heap of dust. As if she had never existed. The Time Lady’s hearts broke. Her left knee gave way but she pulled herself back together and walked back to the team. They had a planet and people to save.

“You OK?” asked Ryan, concerned by the sadness on her face. “Where’s Suki?”

“Succumbed to Praxeus. But I think this may give us a way through. I need a crew in here.”

“Count us in.”

Her companions had knowledge of piloting a space ship since she was often teaching them about to drive the TARDIS – which was kinda ironic because she herself never had the licence for it – and once you had touched the commands of a Type 40 time machine, everything else was as easy as one, two, three. However, having two specialists in space ships was better than a handful of beginners.

“Hi,” waved Adam. “Turns out it worked.”

“Your machine spat this out.”

“That’s the antidote.”

Hope prevailed. In every situation, the Doctor was rooting for hope. They had an antidote and a way to spread it over Earth so the planet and its inhabitants would be forever immune to the virus. It almost softened the death of the gentle Suki. Almost.

She scratched her neck. Everyone was busy inside the little booth where the commands of this ship were situated. They all had a task and she was supervising it all. Everything looked fine so far. She could be proud of her extended fam.

“Engine vents on,” declared Yaz. “Apparently.”

“System set to automated timed venting,” added Ryan. “I think.”

“Manual bypass, bypassed,” said Gabriela.

“Dialls on full clockwise.”

“I said anticlockwise!” protested the Doctor.

“Just testing!” joked Graham.

“Organic fuel cells loaded with Praxeus antidote,” affirmed Adam.

“Trajectory aligned,” confirmed Jake. “Comms off. Spatial regulators disabled.”

“Organic fuel cells filled with Praxeus killing virus, as tested on Adam, check. Autopilot system for the Earth’s stratosphere, check. All systems set for automation.”

“No idea what any of this means, but is that literally the controls for up, down, left and right?” asked Jake.

“Yeah.”

“Adam Lang, your job is so easy!”

“Shuttle initiation autopilot take off.”

“Gold stars for my apprentice engineers.”

They were done there. Once it would be in the stratosphere, the engines would discharge the virus in one superpowered burst, dispersing it around the world, killing Praxeus stone dead. Hopefully. There was one tiny flaw in the plan. If they sent it into the atmosphere, it would rip a hole in that world and they would be crushed under the entire Indian Ocean. They had to leave the place and reach the TARDIS as soon as possible. They had to be in the Vortex before this ship took off. They all ran outside the booth. The Doctor used the sonic screwdriver on the ship. The engine pops.

“Go!” screamed the Doctor.

“What was that?”

“Autopilot failure. It can’t connect.”

“It’s gonna work though, right?”

“I dunno. It might not. But it’s definitely going to take off. We need to get out of here!”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“Too late to fix! Come on.”

They all ran back inside the TARDIS. The Doctor immediately reached for the commands and set the dematerialisation sequence just in time before the whole underwater world was submerged by the ocean. They were all safe and sound. Well, almost. Jake was missing. He wasn’t on board with them.

“Are these comms on? Spacecraft to blue box, can you hear me?”

“Jake, what are you doing?”

“Manual pilot making up for broken autopilot. Any idiot can fly a spaceship, right?”

“Jake, I don’t want this,” said Adam.

“Maybe I do. Maybe I need this.”

“You’re entering the stratosphere!” exclaimed the Doctor.

“Yeah, that really doesn’t mean anything to me! But if I was a betting man, and my husband would tell you I really am, I’d say the automatic release is bust. Tell me what I need to do!”

“The controls by your right hand will vent the antidote. You need to flick the three switches at once.”

The Doctor was just like everyone else in the console room. She clearly disagreed with Jake’s decision. It was a sacrifice. The former police officer was sacrificing himself to save the entire planet and he was saying goodbye to them up, saying goodbye to his husband. For once, the man wanted to do something right and giving his life for the sake of the whole planet that had given him more than he could have wished for. He flickered the switches when the Doctor indicated to him that it was the right time.

“Jake, you’ve done it! Antidote particles being dispersed into the jet streams.”

“Hope it works! The ship’s very knackered! About to blow!”

“You can save him, right?”

Gabriela was asking the question everyone had on the tip of their tongue and she just stood there, beside the console while they all watched the heart-breaking explosion of the ship that signed the end of their friend. She rushed to the commands and started fiddling with the levers and buttons. Her fam was looking at her, wondering if she could really do it now that the ship had exploded. But it was a time machine, right? She could go back and save him. There was no other way.

An alarm blared and yet, they were still hoping. This woman was the definition of impossible. She could do anything. She had the power to do anything in her hands. The fact that she was living by her own rules proved that she had done things in the past that she shouldn’t have and had learnt a lesson from it. But death was a lesson she knew all too well and she couldn’t take it anymore. And now, Jake was on board with them.

“Yes, I can save him. Just, if I materialise around him in the millisecond before the ship breaks up.”

“Nice work, Doc.”

“What can I say? I’m a romantic.”

She needed happy endings. She hated endings but she could go with them when they were good. She needed happiness and hope, especially now. Losing Gallifrey a second time to the hands of a lunatic had been hard on her. Finding out there was another version of her somewhere in this world was hard to, but her fam knew about that. They didn’t know about Gallifrey. They didn’t know she had nowhere to go back to. There was no home anymore. She just had her TARDIS and her fam, a fam that was pretty distant with her lately.

“What about a trip home?”

They had just dropped Adam, Jake and Gabriela on the Madagascar’s beach where they met Suki for the first time. This mission had been long, full of adrenaline, exhausting. They all needed a break. What was better than bringing them home so they could be with their family and friends during this break? She could be alone for a couple days.

“Planet Earth,” she murmured to herself once they were all off the TARDIS. “Seven billion lives. Separate and connected, from the edge of the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean. All my life I have been fighting for the sake of this planet, to protect humans against the biggest threats. They never knew. They will never know.”

She heaved a deep sigh. She mechanically touched her neck. The scratch was deep and long. How could no one have not notice it? It wasn’t like she had been hiding it. They had all been too busy saving the Earth. She couldn’t blame them. The sake of a whole planet was more important than a dying Time Lady.

“So, where are we heading to, old girl? Have you got anything in store for me? One last trip?”

The TARDIS made a sad noise. Her lights had already changed to blue to express her sadness and the Doctor’s hopelessness on front of this situation. There was nothing they could do. The ship had been calculating her chances of survival if she was taking the antidote for humans and desperately been trying to find a new formula that would save her driver. So far, past, present and future had been disappointing in terms of medicine for Time Lords. More advanced species in the universe, exterminated twice and not even able to have a cure for a disease… but why would they need an antidote for a human _disease_? They weren’t supposed to travel that much. Gallifrey had nothing to her. Nothing more than the education she had been given.

“Doc, you alright?”

The Doctor blinked, surprised to hear the voice of her oldest companion on board. They were all there, the three of them. Ryan and Yaz were sat on the stairs, a spot they all seemed to like a lot, and chatting, waiting for the next trip that wouldn’t come. Graham was standing beside her, observing her. She was leaning against the console and staring off at the time rotor. A habit she had developed since she was a woman. Or she had had it before. It didn’t matter. Someone was finally caring about her. Or pretending to. And she was about to lie again.

“I’m fine,” she affirmed with a smile. “Already back on board?”

“Yeah. We,” Graham gestured toward the youngest companions, “were talking and… we’ve all noticed you were off since we left Madagascar. I’ve been designed to talk to you.”

To be fair, they all were aware that the Doctor wouldn’t say a word about what was bothering her. You had to worm the words out of her by insisting and she was good at changing the subject. They were talking to her about their fears and hopes and frustrations and she was keeping all of hers for herself. She was an obscure friend. Yet, they trusted her with their lives.

“What about vacations? You’ve been great with Praxeus. Time for a reward after all this good work!”

The idea of vacations could work on Yaz and Ryan but they were too busy faking a conversation to react to the offer. They were listening to their talk. They wanted to know as well as Graham. She was their friend, they were worried. This offer didn’t work at all on Graham of course. He wouldn’t let her change the subject this time. He put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. She shirked away, caught his look of horror. He had seen it. Now, he _knew_.

“Doc…”

“Don’t say anything.”

The Time Lady pretended something had caught her attention on the console and pressed a couple buttons absently. She could feel Graham’s eyes on her and the fake conversation had come to an end. She had wanted to keep it a secret, but she was alone against three worried humans. Graham walked up to her.

“You’ve been scratched in the lab,” he whispered. “You’ve been infected.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Lots of adrenaline and running. Haven’t checked. Probably just a cut from the broken glass.”

“How long have you known?”

He wasn’t buying it. All her lies were useless: he wouldn’t believe her. Distracting him wouldn’t work either. The symptoms were getting obvious. It was spreading. She caught her reflection in the screen. She was beginning to look like Adam Lang. Pale, feverish, dark bags under the eyes. No wonder why no one believed her lies. She sighed.

“Just enjoy one last trip, okay?”

Yaz and Ryan were silent actors of this conversation now. They were up and about to join them because this talk wasn’t pleasing them. Something was really wrong with the Doctor. That explained the sudden trip back home. Graham raised a hand to stop them from coming any closer. They had to keep silent.

“It’s been immediate.”

The Doctor rolled the sleeve of her right arm up briefly so Graham could have a look at the ivory scales covering her skin. Half of her arm was already condemned by this second skin and there certainly was more but she was quick to put her sleeve back to hide it all.

“I’m sorry, Doc.”

“Don’t be. Everyone has to die, eventually. I still have time.”

This lie was more for herself than for her companions. Time was exactly what she needed and what she didn’t have. The virus was spreading fast, and the TARDIS was finding nothing. She would leave unfinished missions, give up on the universe at the dawn of a war that would ravage everything.

“Someone catch me.”

“What?”

Ryan was first to do something. He remembered all too well that first night they met the Doctor. A scene like this had happened back then, but it was less critical than it was now. He rushed to the Time Lady and caught her when she collapsed. Things were getting really complicated now.

“Bioreadings synchronised with the TARDIS. I think.”

Ryan had seen the Doctor doing that earlier with Adam Lang. He was repeating the same with the Time Lady. It would help them to monitor the spreading of the virus. The screens would be of no help. They were full of incomprehensible symbols. The TARDIS was cooperative. She was showing them the Doctor’s vital signs. Something Graham could decode more or less easily. The Time Lady was sat on the ground, her back against the wall. Yaz was knelt beside her. Her face showed a deep sadness.

“You should take the antidote.”

“Wouldn’t work. Made for humans. Could kill me faster.”

She was already feeling bad enough. She was clinging to life, her immune system was fighting the virus as much as possible, but the scales were progressing on her skin. No one could miss the ones who had grown on her neck and replaced the scratches.

“Is there anything we can do for you? Maybe take you home or something?”

“Oh, Graham…” Her bottom lip was quivering. “My home’s here. It’s this TARDIS. It’s the three of you. I have nowhere else to go.”

Slowly, she began the story of her home planet, telling them how it used to be beautiful, how it was ravaged by war, unexpectedly saved only to be destroyed again by the Master. She had nowhere and no one to go to because everything was gone forever.

Graham was glancing worriedly at the screen displaying her heartbeats. It was showing anxiety but it wasn’t abnormal considering the situation. The Doctor was resigned. She took a sharp breath. The scales were spreading. It was almost over.

“There must be something we can do.”

The Doctor had never been in such a situation before. She had never been about to die. She had taken them home to go and die alone. She hadn’t wanted to leave them stranded in the universe. She really was caring about them in the end. She smiled sadly at them. The TARDIS was accepting the end of their adventures. She was busy soothing the Doctor’s mind. The woman couldn’t have dreamt of a better company for her final hour. The virus won and she disappeared, only leaving a heap of clothes and dust behind her…


	2. Chapter 2

“This is Emergency Program One.”

The three companions startled at the sound of the Doctor’s voice in their back. Their friend was known to always be one step ahead of them. She had proved it many times before and the most remarkable time she had done it was when she intervened to save them from a plane crash while they all thought she was a prisoner of the evil agent O. What had she invented now? Graham was the first one to turn around. Yaz was crying and gathering what was left of the Doctor as if it was gonna bring her back from the dead, and Ryan didn’t have the heart to stop her in her useless attempt. He was just as shaken as she was.

There was a translucent blueish ghost standing in front of the console and staring at the front door. Well, kinda staring at them actually. Graham stood before the hologram, passed his hand through it. The Doctor, her image, flickered but still delivered her speech. A goodbye speech, he understood. She had recorded this message for them while they were gone when she had found out that there was no way out for her on that one.

“Fam, I’m sorry. This wasn’t meant to happen. I have been reckless and, well, you know the rest of the story. At least, I could take you home, to safety. It would have been a shame to have you stay on an alien planet. Though you would have fitted in. I believe you would have. You’re all so brilliant. You are three brilliant people. I’m glad fate put you on my way. You’ve become the family I have always been looking for. Thank you. What happens now… I gotta face it alone. There’s just one thing I need you to do, one last thing. Emergency Program One means I’m dying or that I’m already dead and no one can ever get their hands on my ship. It is parked down Yaz’ building. Let it die. Let it gather dust. No one can open it, no one will notice it. Over time, it will be forgotten and buried. It will be a strange little thing. Only you three will know the story behind it. Remember me, fam. Tell our story to your kids. I…”

“Oh, shut up.”

There was the sound of a door closing and the sonic screwdriver whirred. The hologram vanished and three heads turned to look at the woman coming up to them. They could have thought it was their friend coming back from the dead somehow. But it wasn’t her. Not the Doctor they knew. A blonde. A short woman. A ridiculously long coat and boots. Beside that, this woman was nothing like their Doctor. The expression on her face was severe, drained. The expression of someone who had seen too much. A single red strand coloured her longer blonde hair. Half of her face was marked by a long scar crossing her nose and ending under her left eye that was lost in the middle of a sort of printed circuit board covering most of the left side of her face. She was wearing a buttoned up white shirt with a black waistcoat, yellow suspenders and black jeans. Her boots were tightly tied under the legs of her pants.

She lowered the sonic screwdriver she was holding in a black-gloved hand and put it back in an internal pocket on her coat. She was on Graham’s level now and none of the companions had moved to stop her. They were all staring at her with big shocked eyes. She was the Doctor and she wasn’t the Doctor. What was it again?

“I’ve always spoken too much and we don’t have time for goodbyes. We gotta save myself before any of this happens.”

x

Graham, Ryan and Yaz were sat on the stone steps of the small place where the TARDIS was always parked when the Doctor was coming around. They were silent. They were trying to process the events of the last few hours: the loss of their friend to a deadly virus, the arrival of a new ‘Doctor’, the possibility of bringing the Doctor back to life by modifying her timeline, the idea of two identical Doctors – or almost – the incertitude of it all being real. The other Doctor had been convincing; she had done one of those incomprehensible monologues she was a specialist of and they had left her alone with the TARDIS… The ship had let her in without any alarm or distrust, it obviously meant that she was a good person, right? And she looked so much and so little like their Doctor. It was their only hope to save their friend, and they wanted to believe that it was possible. Especially Yaz.

In the Doctor, she hadn’t just found a way out of her plain and boring life, she had also found a door to her true self. The challenges, ordeals, questions, life-changing experiences had given a purpose to her life, a way to change things and be useful to others. She had survived so far to carve her name in History and find the person her heart had always looked for. A person she admired to the point of falling in love despite the incompatibility, despite the fact it wasn’t shared. And she had lost it before she could admit it out to the concerned person. She had to live on with that and cling to the hope that maybe, maybe, this new Doctor would bring the woman she loved back. But first, she had to fix a few things in History so the Doctor could be brought back. Somehow.

Their past was changing, slightly. Just tiny details without importance. That’s what someone who never travelled through time would think. Changing a single detail of the past could compromise all the future, including events and persons’ lives. And the details that were changed would bring the Doctor back to life and save the universe from the dark fate the weird double of their friend had described to them. Terrifying.

“Did we really let this woman go with the TARDIS?” asked Ryan.

He was incredulous. He couldn’t believe they actually did this. The TARDIS was the Doctor’s most precious belonging. It was her home. Why would they let the first person coming around and claiming she could fix it all take the ship and run away? For Ryan, it was betrayal toward their friend’s memory.

“Her last words were for us. She was thanking us, telling us to remember her. We should have protected her home better.”

“We should have been better friends.”

There was a general sigh and they all returned to their contemplation of the horizon full of buildings and concrete. That was a terrible sight. They had seen the wonders of the universe, had found out that there was no limit to this universe. And now, they were back to the boring everyday life of their human life. They were back in the cage, back in their limited area with their hearts bleeding out from the pain of the loss they were trying to cope with.

The atmosphere around them changed and no one else but them noticed it. People were coming and going as usual. No one stopped and stared. No one felt time slowing down; the air swirling around them, making room for what was gonna happen here. The three companions waiting in expectation. The blinking light came first. Then, the wheezing groaning sound of the materialisation of a powerful engine. The blue box didn’t appear behind them, in its usual spot. It materialised in all its glory in front of them. It seemed different from the box that left minutes ago. It was older. And the panel on the front door had gone white. But it was the TARDIS. There was no doubt on that. How long had this weird Doctor be gone?

The front door squealed when it was opened and a brown-haired head peaked around. Short cropped hair, blue eyes, big nose and large ears; a leather jacket and a confused look. The TARDIS had been playing around again. It wasn’t where this man wanted to be, but it was the box the three humans had been expected.

“Will you stop doing that?” he grumbled.

He was out of the box now with his back on them. He was pressing a blaming finger on the blue box door. They glanced at each other, the same thought in their minds the same hope in their hearts. They would have less issues believing that this guy was the Doctor than believe the other woman. She had taken them by surprise, had coaxed them with her words and uncanny resemblance with their friend.

“Madagascar, Singapore, the Indian Ocean, and now Sheffield? 2019? What’s the message? Hm?”

“He’s got a TARDIS,” whispered Ryan.”

“And a Northern accent,” added Graham.

“And an excellent hearing.”

The man swiftly turned around to face them. Three pairs of eyes looked up at him. From what he could smell on them, they had already travelled in the Vortex. Yet, they were humans. Humans from this very century. He scanned them with his sonic screwdriver but was interrupted by a blonde woman coming out of the TARDIS.

“Where are we now, Doctor? What’s wrong with the old girl?”

“He’s the Doctor?” asked Graham.

He still had troubles getting his head around the fact that the Doctor could change faces like she had explained to them after the incident with the Judoons and Ruth. And that crazy Captain Jack Harkness. That warning he had given them was of no use anymore. The Doctor couldn’t give anything to anyone in the condition she was in.

“Why not?” shrugged Yaz. “She said she was a white-haired Scotsman before. And she keeps… Well, kept mistaking pronouns. Not used to be being a woman.”

“Oh, and C. thought she was a man and she retorted that she had had an upgrade.”

“And that Jack guy was convinced of the same thing.”

“Who the hell are you?”

The man was growing angry and impatient now. The blonde woman was gentler. She gave them a soft smile, grabbed the arm of the man with the leather jacket and slightly forced him to back away. He wasn’t happy with that but obeyed anyway, grumbling under his breath. Graham got up. He doubted this man was the kind to shake hands so he just stood there and introduced himself and his friends.

“I’m Graham. This is my grandson, Ryan, and Yaz. We didn’t mean to bother you but you might know our friend and she needs help.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“She’s…” Yaz glanced at the man in leather. “You.”

“Me?”

“She’s the Doctor.”

“Impossible. I am the Doctor.”

“Listen, I, I know it’s confusing but it’s true. She’s got a TARDIS like this one. We were travelling with her but she hadn’t been herself recently. All because of this guy, Master.”

The Doctor’s body stiffened and his brow furrowed. Obviously, the name rang a bell but that wasn’t him that was gonna answer all of their questions. They needed his help. He seemed to be more reliable than the woman they had met earlier. And they had let her go with the TARDIS. The Doctor in leather was curious now.

“There can’t be two Doctors on the same timeline. That would create a paradox.”

“If I believe everything we’ve seen so far, there’s four of you in that timeline at the moment.”

“Impossible.”

As a way to prove him wrong, the familiar sound of the materialisation of the TARDIS. A blue box similar to his appeared in the back of the three humans from Sheffield. No one came out but two of the humans sneaked in rapidly as if the box was theirs. It wasn’t their first time. The Doctor could have gone in his own TARDIS and tried to reach his real destination but the old lady had led him here. There was a reason and he had to find it out.

“Troubles?” asked Rose.

“Oh, yes.”

The broad smile on their face said it all: troubles met action and adventure and they were always up for it. The Doctor caught Rose’s hand and followed Graham inside this new TARDIS. This other Doctor could only be from the future. If it was a past incarnation, he would remember it.

x

The first thing Yaz saw when she rushed into the TARDIS was this blonde woman hunched over the console, doing manipulations and speaking to herself. A habit the Doctor had too. But she wasn’t the Doctor. She couldn’t be the Doctor and what the police officer saw convinced her of that truth. The woman had taken off her coat and hung it on the stairs’ handrail. She had rolled up the sleeves of her white shirt. One of her arms was made of flesh and bones but the other…. This woman had a robotic arm. She was an android. And the Doctor would never have lowered herself to that. That was a certitude.

Ryan bumped into Yaz who had stopped abruptly at the sight before her. If the device on her face wasn’t enough to find this woman strange, the fact that she had a robotic arm was convincing them of this reality. The two young people were both astonished by the sight of this imperfect copy of her friend.

“What the actual hell?”

“Ah, Sheffield 2019. I made it.” The fake Doctor turned around, met their incredulous – disgusted? – look on her, understood what they were thinking. “All of this doesn’t matter. We have more important things to do.”

“It does matter! Who are you? What do you want?”

“That’s an excellent question,” added a cold Northern accent.

“Perfect!” exclaimed the fake Doctor. “One of you caught the signal and followed it.”

“The old girl likes distress signals, and I am absolutely furious at impostors like you. They told me you were the Doctor but you can’t be. Look at yourself. You’re just a human from the far future who has been converted, and not even entirely. They got bored halfway through? Get away from this ship. Let the professional take care of the situation.”

The blonde caught his arm mid-way through his movement to touch the console. The Time Lord glared at her; she held his icy gaze. Rose was impressed by the courage of this woman. Not many could stand against the Doctor like that. What she was the most impressed by was how she had left him speechless by this simple move. He was glaring at her still but his expression changed. Something in her had shaken him to the core. She let go of his arm. He stepped back.

“Time for the tale, I guess,” the CyberDoctor sighed. All eyes were on her now. She folded her arms. So did the Doctor in leather. Same person, different face. “Every time you take a decision, a parallel world is created. A parallel world where you haven’t taken that decision. And vice versa. Works for Time Lords as much as this one,” she pointed to her past self, “might deny it. Our species can travel through these worlds. Your Doctor took a decision that led to the creation of me. Another decision led her to her death. It disrupted the course of time in every world.” She marked a pause. “In my future, the world is ravaged by a war. I’ve had to be upgraded,” she showed her arm and face, “to survive. I am nothing like your Doctor you knew. I am… something else. Not entirely Time Lord anymore, but not human or Cyberman either.”

“Cyberman… like in lone Cyberman?”

“Yes. Jack gave you the warning already. Perfect. Can’t say much more about the future but these upgrades are all because of this guy. I lost my second battle to him. Cybermen are winning this war and this can’t happen in any universe. So when I found out that your Doctor was missing, I jumped from my world to yours to fix the wound it caused in time.”

“But she’s not missing…” began Yaz. “She’s gone.”

“Not anymore!” the CyberDoctor declared. “I fixed the mistake and time healed itself. Your Doctor is back in this timeline. I just can’t locate her. My origins are blocking my tracking abilities.”

“Hence why you’ve sent this distress signal,” grumbled the Doctor. “What now?”

“If I’m connecting you to the telepathic circuit of her TARDIS, the old girl can extrapolate your whole timeline…”

“And she will find my future self hiding in the shadows of my mind that I can’t grasp yet.”

The companions had no idea of what the two Time Lords were talking about and were looking at each other confusedly. But there was no impossible in their vocabulary. The Doctor was alive, somewhere, and they were bickering about the way to find her wherever she was. Which was not pleasing the Doctor in leather obviously. His face when the other Doctor pulled out the head device to connect him to the telepathic circuit of the TARDIS was priceless. There was more arguing until the blonde put it on his head forcefully. He was going do it for the sake of his future whether he liked it or not. It was amusing for the companions to witness the Doctors arguing with themselves.

“Don’t discuss: do it!”

The Doctor in leather finally gave in – after giving the Cyber blonde a piece of his mind – and let the TARDIS explore his mind, extrapolate his timeline. It wasn’t too bad of an experience, if watching a speed highly blurry and mute movie could be a pleasurable experience. He couldn’t have a glimpse of his future. It was forbidden by the laws of his people. So he was saving his future and running back to the universe with Rose. He couldn’t stay around here too much, as curious as he was.

“Got her!”

The CyberDoctor began messing around with the buttons and levers of the console to lock the current coordinates of their missing Doctor. Time, space, exact location. They only had to pick her up and put her back on tracks. Then, everyone would be fine again. This little dance around the console was fascinating and funny and despite the good news that had just dropped, something was bothering everyone: the CyberDoctor was the only one not to smile.

x

Her eyes slowly fluttered open. Her head was buzzing. She was numb from head to toe, on the inside and on the outside. She was like an old computer pulled out of the attic and switched back on out of nostalgia. She was slow, barely responsive, using old codes to work in a world that had moved on ages ago. Her brains were starting at the pace of a sloth. Frustrating.

“Don’t move, ma’am. You’ve been a close call.”

The voice was smooth like the stroke of silk on the skin. Hands checked her vital signs. Something cold against her back and chest. Pressure around her biceps. Heartbeats, breathing, blood pressure. Light in her eyes. She blinked. Everything was white around. Was she in a hospital? What was her name already? It was all confused in her head. Lots of things in her thoughts. She couldn’t put them in order. She was tired still.

“What’s happen’d?”

Her tongue was furry, heavy. She had a hard time speaking. She had escaped death. Fine. It wasn’t the first time. She was a woman. That was a first. She must have regenerated. Hence the confusion. She was cold too. No, she was hot. And she didn’t feel like she had just regenerated. Nothing new, no energy skittering off her, no cells burning and forming a new body. She had nearly died but had not regenerated. She had been a woman for a while.

“We found you on the ruins of a battlefield. You were suffering from a severe skin infection. You were taken in charge just in time. Can you tell me your name?”

“What skin infection?”

She was given some water that tasted sugary and bitter. She grimaced. She would have preferred a custard cream. How much she missed the custard creams dispenser of her TARDIS! Where was her magnificent ship? Why couldn’t she remember her name?

“We’ll talk about it later. You still need rest.”

“I need…” Her eyelids were heavy. She was falling asleep again. She didn’t need that much sleep. It wasn’t in her genes. “I want…”

“What do you want?”

“A custard cream,” she laughed sleepily.

“I’ll see what I can do,” promised her interlocutor.

She smiled. She was dozing off. There was a sound far, far away. A wheezing, groaning sound. It was her ship. It had come for her. How? It didn’t matter. It was there. It would hold all the answers she was seeking.

x

Yaz was the first to step out of the TARDIS. She was attacked by the brightness of the place. It was white and luminous. Too luminous. First thought. She had come here already. Second thought. It was with the Doctor. Not so long ago. This place had been a place of wonders and catastrophes. This spaceship shouldn’t exist anymore. Were they in the past or in the future? Yaz couldn’t care less. All she had in mind was her mission: find the Doctor.

Graham and Ryan came out and their expressions were clear: they remembered the place as well as she did. It was huge and without help, they would be lost. One last person left the TARDIS. The sound of heavy boots and the closing of the ship’s door indicated that the team was complete or so. They were convinced that the other Doctor was a scam. She had taken them – supposedly – to the Doctor. She took the lead of their team. They noticed that her coat was back on her as well as the glove on her cyber hand. She was keeping it hidden in public. It was a shame for her. She didn’t assume it at all.

The CyberDoctor walked quickly forward. The three humans followed her without a word. She seemed to know where she was going until they met a member of the staff. They were all part of the medical staff. The ship was on automatic pilot. It was programmed to go to a precise destination and it wouldn’t stop until it reached it. It didn’t matter to them. They were getting the Doctor back and leaving this place.

“Hi, I’m looking for my younger sister. She looks like me with shorter hair minus the red strand. No face device. Must be confused. Probably has forgotten her name again.”

“Oh, miss Custard Cream,” laughed the nurse.

“What?”

“She asked me for custard creams when she woke up earlier. Family is better than biscuits. Follow me.”

They obediently followed the nurse through the rooms and corridors until they reached the room where the Doctor was peacefully sleeping in her signature outfit. An outfit that was covered in dirt and sand. They had found her. She was fine, she was fine. She could come back home.

They waited until she woke up though. The CyberDoctor was busy explaining how they had gotten there magically. The companions were waiting by the Doctor’s side. They were the first faces she saw when she opened her eyes again. She smiled. She recognised them all. Her fam. She had asked for biscuits; she was given her fam instead. Pretty cool. She sat up suddenly.

“How did you get here? How did **_I_** get there? That’s not where we should be.”

“Where should we be?”

“Home.”

The Doctor raised her head to get a proper look at the new comer with the same voice and was gobsmacked to see an imperfect version of herself in front of her. Her fam wasn’t surprised to see her there. They already knew her. It was a long story, Graham said. She was the one who saved her, added Ryan. Praxeus had killed her, finished Yaz. She remembered now… contracting the virus, looking for a cure for herself and dying surrounded by her fam. Then, she had woken up here with no memories. Her past had been rewritten. She had been sent to a future where a cure available for all species. Her life had been saved… by a cyber twin of her. It was a shock.

They didn’t have much time to go into details. She had to be brought back to her home, back to Sheffield, for things to go back into order. Ryan helped her up. The staff wasn’t okay with her leaving but she was fine now. Just a bit sleepy from the heavy medication she had been given. Her “sister” threw the long coat on her shoulders, pulled the hood on to hide her. Graham and Ryan helped her to walk to the TARDIS. They reached the ship without issue. The fam sat on the stair’s steps with the Doctor while the CyberDoctor was sending them back to the Vortex, back to Sheffield.

“Well Sheffield 2019. Back to normal. I shall disappear now. My existence is no longer needed. Everything is how it should be.”

The Doctor got up from the step she was sat on and walked toward her other self. Touching her would surely create a paradox. Yet, she wanted to hug her, to thank her properly for stepping in and saving her life. She had been told quickly about her story in the other world she came from, about the war. Just what she needed to know. Nothing more. She had plenty adventures left to live.

The TARDIS’ alarms blared loudly, the lights became red. The paradox had been detected and the CyberDoctor wasn’t leaving. Something was wrong. She was supposed to be gone now. Alarms blared louder. Three Judoons unexpectedly beamed in the TARDIS.

“What?” exclaimed the two Doctors.

“Judoon Cold Case Unit. Fugitive, the Doctor. Sentence, whole of life imprisonment, maximum security facility.”

Confusion reigned in the TARDIS. They had escaped the Judoons, fixed this trouble. They hadn’t done all of this to have the Doctor taken away from them forever. The three companions wouldn’t let it happen. They were ready to step ahead and declare to be the Doctor, to be sentenced in her place. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. It was too soon. The CyberDoctor understood why she was still here now: she had to take her place until the time came for her to be sent to that prison cell. She stood before her “sister”.

“I am the Doctor. I’m the one you’re looking for.”

There was no time for hesitation or protest. There was a blinding white light and she stumbled on the ground of her new home: the cell of a prison built into an asteroid in deep space. It wasn’t Stormcage, nor any prison she knew about. If someone came after her, they would have a hard time finding her. She was alone in this…


	3. Chapter 3

She was lying lifelessly on the cold ground of the prison cell she had now been living in for months. It had been her decision to take her place while she was busy catching up on the adventures she hadn’t lived yet and learning the most shocking news of all her lives. And she wouldn’t even be given the time to process this news, or a moment to breathe. No moment of respite for the Doctor. The moment it would all be over, the Judoons would find her and lock her down in that very cell. Of course, between the moment she would leave Gallifrey and the moment the Judoons would find her, the alternate copy, the imperfect twin that she was, would disappear forever. She wasn’t meant to exist. She was born, she had lived and suffered only to serve the purpose of saving and protecting the original Doctor. Waiting in that cell for her moment to be free of this dull existence had been a last minute mission for which she hadn’t needed any minute of thinking: she immediately accepted it.

She had no explanation for her life imprisonment sentence, no answer to the questions she had asked her gaolers. The only piece of information she had was that she had been a fugitive. She had been accused of fleeing. It was no big news in itself. She had always been on the run, had always been a fugitive in some way. She was wanted dead or alive for millions of different reasons across the universe. At least, the original Doctor was, but since her timeline had been pretty messed up with her unexpected death, the universe had found a way to handle the crisis until things were back into order. Into the order the Doctor was living her adventures. In the meanwhile, her alternate, cyber self would handle the life sentence she had been condemned to.

She had known from the start it would be Hell for her, more than it would be for the Doctor. The cells were secure. Every weapon, every device was disabled to avoid any risk of evasion, which, without bragging, she was usually an expert of. Consequently, when she had been locked down in this cell, the Cybermite she was using to control her right arm had stopped working and she had lost the use of it again. She could have coped with it. It was annoying but it was possible to live like this, especially in a small prison cell. The real issue was that she had another piece of Cyberman in her and its disabling was seriously problematic for her health: in the war she was fighting in before jumping in this universe, she had lost her arm and had been so badly wounded that her hearts couldn’t work properly anymore. She had a Cyberman chest unit in her chest that used to supply her hearts with the necessary energy to keep her more than just alive. Without it, they were too weak to work to 100%. They were just keeping her alive. Maybe a regeneration would fix that. Maybe not. She would know when she would be on the edge of dying. And it could take some time.

She opened her eyes to the sound of ruckus outside of her cell. Before, she would have been part of the curious people jumping on the door to try to grab a piece of information on what was going on and coax a guard or two to escape this cell. Not today. Not anymore. She remained on the uncomfortable cold ground. She didn’t have a straw mattress. Nothing but this ground she was eating, sleeping and pacing on. Well, when she had the strength to do more than lying there and staring at the ceiling. She shivered. She missed her long and warm coat. It would have kept her warm in there… If she hadn’ given it to the original Doctor. Her body wasn’t adjusting its temperature anymore. It wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t a priority.

The ruckus intensified. It certainly was time for food distribution or the arrival of a new prisoner. When you were locked away in an abandoned part of the universe, these were the only distractions you had. After a while though, you were growing disinterested by this circus. The routine and annoyance were consuming you just as fast as the solitude did. There was a time where she wouldn’t have needed anyone to have a full conversation. She didn’t even have that luxury anymore. She was just waiting. Waiting for an end that would never come.

There was a loud bang on her door. She didn’t even startle. It was a signal. The hatchway slid open and a tray was pushed inside the room. Another day of eating bland food. The Judoons had no taste – or very particular tastes – but she ate what she was given. That was the only break in her routine of lying on the ground and waiting. ‘Fro plo plo do!’ barked a Judoon which confirmed her guesses. The hatch was slid close brutally. She dragged herself to the tray, made a face. It smelt as bad as a nest of… a nest of what exactly? She lost the thought, picked the food, ate some. There was something tapped under the plastic container. A paper. A paper with a message only her could understand.

She was stunned. Her thumb was stroking the words traced in Gallifreyan circles on this tiny sheet of ivory paper. Only someone from Gallifrey could have sent this. Or someone who had been close to Gallifrey for long enough to learn the language. No one else was using it and no one else could understand it. She didn’t raise her hope high, didn’t expect anything to happen despite the words on the paper. Anyone could have tapped it there to add to her torture. They could have found this in her belongings, in the pockets of her coat – though she would remember possessing such a message in her pockets – or someone sent it there as a joke. But even if that was a joke, how could they have known that she was the only one who could decode this? Was there another note indicating that it was for her and only for her? What was the point? She was locked here for the universe to forget about her. Beside the Doctor, beside her companions, no one knew that she was there. According to what they would go through, or what they had already gone through, they were unlikely to come for her.

She creased the paper in her fist and pocketed it. Her only interest now was to finish this tasteless food. She pushed the tray toward the door when she was done and moved to the darkest corner of the cell for the next hours to come. The ruckus hadn’t calmed down. It was pretty unusual. No one dared standing up to the Judoons. The sentence would be terrible. She had done it already and had always managed to fall through the cracks. Until now.

She curled up on the ground, hugging herself for a bit of warmth. There was an argument not far. Judoon language without a doubt. Arguing about something. A prisoner. She opened an eye. Her name had just been mentioned. They wanted to take her elsewhere? She blinked. She was trying to concentrate and her body wanted to sleep. Contradictory. They had awoken her curiosity. But the argument ceased and footsteps walked away. She wouldn’t know more. Her mind was wide awake. Her body was dozing off. What did they want? Why did they want to move her to another cell?

x

_Her eyes fluttered open slowly. The light was dim but it still blinded her and nailed white-hot needles in her skull. She had a hell of a headache and her body felt like it had been crushed healed and crushed again. Her back was resting on a hard surface, her chest was on fire and the air was filled with a slightly different composition than what she was used to on Earth where she had been leading all her battles lately. 77% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and 2% of other gases she couldn’t name at the moment. This was familiar atmosphere. It felt natural to her respiratory system. She blinked, couldn’t get her eyes open, always being dragged toward the numbness of a sleep she certainly needed and deserved. She couldn’t sleep though… Why not? There must be a precise reason to this stupid idea. Her eyes closed again. Many images flashed in her mind: Earth destroyed, the lone Cyberman, sending her fam away, fighting Cybermen divisions on her own and a bomb. A bomb thrown at her. A bomb that almost killed her._

_The memories awoke a sense of panic inside her, a panic that launched an unbearable pain in her chest. Her hearts were furiously beating, hitting her ribcage that seemed to have been shattered and rebuilt from scratch. She cried out as she sat up straight. Well, tried to sit up. She had barely propped herself up on her elbows that a strong hand was forcing her down again._

_“Take it easy, dear,” mused a voice. “I’ve just performed one of the best surgeries ever on you.”_

_This voice… Her eyes shot open for good. She could have been a prisoner of the Cybermen who would have been more than happy – if happiness they could feel – to delete or upgrade her totally. But it was someone who knew her. Someone she had known for a long time. Someone she had looked for but was never able to really find. Hadn’t she tried hard enough?_

_“Master…” she croaked._

_He was all too pleased to hear his name in her mouth, to have her at his mercy. His fingers traced a line from the top of her sternum to the red swollen skin just above her breasts. She bit on her bottom lip hard and inhaled sharply not to cry out in pain. She refused to show him how vulnerable and weak she felt when he was beaming away like a child on their birthday._

_“What have done to me?”_

_“Wrong question.”_

_“Where are we?”_

_“_ **That** _is an excellent question. Didn’t you recognise the place? I was sure you would. Come on, I’ve thought you’d be quicker to get where we are.”_

_She turned her head to the side. Darkness threatened to engulf her. Her pain seemed to increase with every beat of her hearts. It was diffuse, echoing. It was pounding and burning in her chest, throbbing in her head, stinging in her eyes. Yet, it wasn’t clouding her intelligence, nor her memories. She gasped and the movement sent an eruption of hot lava in her chest, reduced her hearts to ashes. The Master must have picked her up from the battlefield and brought her there. But what was the point? Why were they on Gallifrey? There was nothing left for them there. They could try to build the Citadel back from dust but that wasn’t in his plans. It was much funnier to cause chaos and destruction all around him._

_“You’ve brought me home to die. How nice of you.”_

_Her voice was cold and cutting and his laugh only added to her annoyance. He sould have left her back there, in the middle of dead corpses. It would have been the perfect end for her, for the Doctor: protect the Earth or die trying._

_The Master appeared in her vision field. He was knelt down beside her, a gleeful grin on his face. She had once believed he was her good friend O. How could he have fooled her at this point? He was always there to annoy, throw chaos on her way and hurt her. What had he found today?_

_“Oh, Doctor. I couldn’t let you die before you knew the truth.”_

_This sentence didn’t feel right at all. Since their last encounter, the Master had been teasing her about the lie of the Timeless Child and how they both didn’t know who they truly were. Apparently, he was gonna take advantage of her being momentarily down to reveal the truth. And to pass her the envy of running away – breathing was draining all of her energy, how could she have even gotten up? – he used a paralysis field._

_He sent her deep in the Matrix, in the core of the Time Lords knowledge. The white light was blinding and the tiny trip down there had been nauseating. She put her hands on her knees, was glad to notice that she could move painlessly._

_“Funny how you see yourself in there.”_

_He tapped her temple with a finger. She jerked away from his touch, breathed deeply. She knew what he was talking about for once. In her mind, she was no CyberDoctor at all. She was just the Doctor, entirely Time Lord, with her two arms. The scars and tattoos were there still, but she had no cyber device stuck to her face, no cyber arm recovering her arm made of flesh and bone._

_“Welcome in the Matrix, Doctor. Are you suffering comfortably?”_

_Her body was suffering. It was in an indescribable excruciating pain and it took all of her consciousness not to embrace the darkness slowly gaining ground. The pain meant she was alive. But for how long? Would the Master leave her to die once she would know the truth he was so willing to show her?_

_The blinding light faded away as the Master retrieved the so precious data that was feeding his rage, that had caused him to turn Gallifrey to the state of a ghost planet. A movie, made from the thousand information gathered in the Matrix began._

_“Then I'll begin. Once upon a time... No. Once upon several times, before the Time Lords, before everything we know, there was an explorer. Her name was Tecteun, from a little-regarded, sparsely populated planet called Gallifrey. Tecteun was the first of Gallifrey's indigenous race, the Shobogans, to develop space travel. Dangerous, unsophisticated space travel. She took risks to explore the worlds and galaxies beyond her home. And it was on one of these distant, deserted worlds on the far edge of another galaxy she found something... impossible. A gateway. A boundary into another unknown dimension or universe. Tecteun glimpsed the infinite through that gateway. And beneath the monument, she found... a child. Abandoned. Alone. Thrown through, seemingly, from the other unknown realm. Tecteun had a choice to make. Abandon or save the child? She chose to rescue the foundling and adopt this refugee from another realm as her own. Together they explored the universe. The child grew older, and finally Tecteun returned to Gallifrey with her new child. Like any parent, Tecteun wanted to understand her child. She searched for clues as to the child's identity. Where she might be from, what species she could be. But the child would not yield any secrets Tecteun could understand. The child remained a mystery, until playing with a friend, like any other child, there was an accident. A catastrophe... for Tecteun, for the child she'd saved, now lost to her. Or so she thought. The child regenerated. The first regeneration of any person on the planet of Gallifrey.”_

_Her body had given up the battle against the darkness. She had fallen into the deep depths of unconsciousness but she was just as good as the Master in terms of being in two places at once. She was wide awake in the Matrix, and out in the real world. A strange concept maybe for the uninitiated._

_“Now, having seen her adopted child regenerate her body, Tecteun, a scientist and explorer, had a new landscape to explore. She dedicated her life to studying her child. Detailed every fragment of genetic material. It took her years. Several of the child's regenerations. Tecteun grew older. Her desire to understand became an obsession. She worked tirelessly, endlessly, furiously. She had to crack this code to understand regeneration. And finally, she did. And to prove herself right, she took the ultimate risk. Tested the theory on herself. Put her own life on the line. Spliced into herself the genetic ability to regenerate. I didn't know any of this. Did you know any of this? Nearly there. The planet of Gallifrey evolved. Shobogans grew in knowledge and ability. They built themselves the Citadel. They discovered the ability to travel through Time as well as space. With Tecteun, they became a self-appointed ruling elite. And Tecteun proposed that they gene-splice the ability to regenerate into future generations of Citadel dwellers. It would become the genetic inheritance of them and their descendants. But he would restrict the regenerative process to a maximum of twelve times. The timeless child became the base genetic code for all Gallifreyans within the Citadel. The civilisation which renamed themselves, with characteristic pomposity, Time Lords. The foundling had become the founder. The rest, as they say, is history.”_

_“What’s happened to the child?”_

_The blinding white light replaced the movie, and she had to blink several times to get used to it. It reminded her of those lights you found in scientific places on Earth. Why did it have to be so white and sterile and scary? The Master was laughing at her gullibility, which infuriated her._

_“What? What’s so funny? What happened to the child?”_

_“Oh, Doctor, really? Haven’t you worked this out yet? The child is you. You are the timeless child.”_

_“No,” she denied immediately. “No, I’m not.”_

_“You always have been.”_

_“I can’t be.”_

_The Master was enjoying her confusion and her pain as he spoke nonsense. This man had been her best friend back in time but he always had that psychopath side in him. It had only gotten worse with time and his evil plans and acts all over the universe had drawn a distance between them. This reveal was the last straw. What he had found out, the reasons why he had destroyed Gallifrey and killed all the Time Lords... all because of_ **her** _. All because she was that mysterious Timeless Child, the first person to have regenerated on Gallifrey, an innocent child turned into a scientific study for the glory of the future Time Lords._

_She asked for more details, she went at him when he retorted that she wasn’t ready and he gave in. He showed her parts of her life she couldn’t remember before, like being part of the Division, something that officially didn’t exist. And suddenly, nothing anymore. The rest of her life until she became this Doctor was lost in data that couldn’t be unblocked at the time._

_Rage filled her. A rage similar to his. The Master was furious that his species was born from the very person he loved hating and torturing, furious to have a tiny bit of her in him, making him who he was. On the other hand, why would he destroy Gallifrey in response to this shocking discovery? He was blaming her, but hadn’t he done this… for her? His best and only friend. His arch enemy. He should have annihilated her but then, no one would be left for him to hate on, for him to be stopped, for him to brag about his exploits._

_She was furious. The Time Lords had always despised her, had always made her feel like she was different because she_ **was** _different. They had used her and her difference for thousands of years and had rejected her and erased her memories over and over again. They had used her for their own profit and stolen her life from her._

_This hot fury unleashed in her awoke the burning pain in her chest. She was stuck in the Matrix but she was leaving the slumber of unconsciousness. Her hand reached for the painful area. The paralysis field was off. Her fingers brushed over her breast only covered by the light fabric of her blood-stained shirt, and followed the descending curve to the hollow between her breasts. The tip of her trembling extremities met a round and cold metallic case._

_The Master laughed heartily at the face she made. A laugh that turned her blood to ice. She was afraid to look down but she couldn’t help her curiosity. Her eyes followed the invisible path of her pain, only to be punched in the face with a blow she hadn’t seen coming: in her chest, in the middle of a rough scar, was inserted a Cyberman chest unit… and it was on._

_“I have the pleasure to inform you that you’re the first creation of my future project, Doctor. This unit,” he knocked on the metallic case with his knuckles, she winced, “is giving your hearts the energy they need to keep you alive. I could have left you to die and regenerate but it wouldn’t have been this fun, right?”_

x

There were people in her cell when her eyes shot open from the nightmare she just had. No, not a nightmare. A memory. A vivid memory from her past. A memory from when her best enemy had made a slave of her and manipulated her into doing his dirty work without her being conscious of anything. Until she was forced to face what she was doing and ran away. Until she made a deal with him before wiping him away from existence with Gallifrey and his monstrous invention: the CyberMasters.

After that, she had gone back in time with his TARDIS instead of hers and she had programmed the ship to return to Gallifrey after it dropped her. She didn’t need a ride back. Her existence would be useless after she saved her alternative self from Praxeus and so Time would delete her. Then, everything she had gone through would never exist. Hopefully. The Master had said the truth on one thing though: she was the Timeless Child. She was the first Time Lord to have ever existed. And she had no home, and no one to go to anymore.

The thought gave her a retch. Someone helped her to sit. A warm touch. An actual touch. No one had touched her in months. No one had interacted with her in months. Her fam… No, the Doctor’s fam. Not hers. As much as she missed them all. They were her friends and she had pushed them away for their safety. They were living their ordinary lives away from her.

She was put on her feet. Her legs wobbled. They – whoever they were – had to hold her so she wouldn’t fall. Her hearts were painfully pounding in her chest and taking away the rest of her energy. Her sight was blurred, filled with large black dots. She was nauseous, weak, exhausted, scared.

Someone said something. It wasn’t clear. She couldn’t quite get in but it sounded like good news for her. In the midst of her panic caused by her nightmare, this rising hope was warm. It was chasing away the coldness of fear inside her followed by the comforting words tickling her ringing ears.

“Prisoner: The Doctor. Extraction for medical reasons: allowed.”

There was a flash a white light, the familiar feeling of teleportation and the brutal landing on her feet. Her legs gave in, she fell to her knees, unable to stay on her feet on her own since her living support wasn’t holding her anymore. The teleportation had separated them, but they weren’t far. She could feel them.

The weakness of her condition and the aftermath of teleportation had made her dizzy and worsened her nausea, but these symptoms were swept away when she recognised the ground she was knelt on. She unclenched her fist, place her open palm on the ground. It purred, vibrated. She couldn’t hold back a sob. She lay down on her stomach, her cheek against the warm ground. Tears silently streamed down the right side of her face. Her left eye couldn’t cry anymore. Not since she had welcomed the Cybermite in her, not since she had this piece of Cyberman’s technology stuck on the left side of her face. She stroked the ground.

“Mummy’s home,” she croaked weekly.

She got a soft hum in answer and the room suddenly felt more alive than seconds ago. How could she be there? A life sentence couldn’t be revoked like that. What had she heard? Extraction for medical reasons. She should have been transferred to a medical unit. Instead, she had been transferred home. Why?

When she opened her eyes again, she thought for a second that this had all been a dream. She felt much better than she had in months: she felt rested and comfortable. Maybe was she still in a dream. She liked this dream. Home was always a welcomed place for her. In reality or in dream.

She wasn’t on the ground anymore, but it still felt like home. Around her, it was all familiar smells and noises. Nothing to be afraid of. She had been moved to the med bay, had been taken care of. Her chest unit had been reactivated and the energy was circulating through her hearts, sending life through her whole body.

Her TARDIS couldn’t have done that on her own. She had needed help. Help from actual people. Her hearts were suddenly filled with hope. Could it be that her fam had come to her rescue? Her lips twitched, but the thought was quickly dismissed. They couldn’t pilot her magnificent ship. Not without her setting coordinates first.

She closed her eyes, focused on what she could hear and smell. Every person had a smell of their own. If it was someone she knew, she would recognise them. Beside hers, there were two distinct smells in the med bay. One of them was undoubtedly human. The other one was more confusing. Human but not too much. Both ancient and recent, life and death. Hint of danger. Loads of flirting. She smiled sleepily.

“Hello, sleeping beauty,” murmured an American accent.

“Captain Jack Harkness,” she laughed. “Do not try your flirt on me.”

“I was just saying hello,” retorted the Captain.

The Doctor snorted. Winced. Her body was coming back to life and she was suffering from the inactivity of her prisoner status. It was hard to keep in shape in a small environment that wasn’t bigger on the inside, let alone with failing hearts.

“Big surprise to have you back there. How did you get me out?”

“Big surprise for me to look for a brown silly guy and to be told the Doctor’s a woman. The surprise was even bigger when I realised you’ve been partly upgraded.”

“Long story. I’m the Doctor, but not the one who should be here. Her decisions should have erased me from her alternative timeline.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. The Doctor was often making no sense but he knew about parallel worlds and alternative timelines. He was a time traveller and an immortal. He had some time to kill. However, that didn’t explain why there were supposedly two Doctors at the moment. Well, he only had one version of her and apparently, it wasn’t even the good one.

“Found your three companions in 2020 Sheffield. They told me about your latest adventures and how you’ve been taken away by the Judoons. Took me a while to build a plan and get you out. Couldn’t have my friend rot in Hell forever.” He knew all too well that unpleasant feeling. “You sent them back on Earth like you did with Rose, but the TARDIS said you wanted to go back for them.”

“That’s when she was supposed to come back from Gallifrey and get back to her life.”

“Except she never made it back,” commented another voice.

She was so fast to sit up straight and cover her body with the bed’s sheet that her head was spinning and dots flew before her eyes. She felt strong calloused hands steady her with a slightly blaming ‘you shouldn’t move this quick’ American warning. It was one thing to have been seen by Jack – it wasn’t the first time he was actually seeing her, but she was a woman now and it made her more uncomfortable about the idea? – she wouldn’t let anyone else see what she had become. She was ashamed enough of her looks, of all these bits of Cyberman technology added to her body for a survival she had never wished for in the first place.

She soon noticed that she was still wearing her clothes and that her shirt was buttoned up, that her waistcoat was on and hiding her chest from curious eyes. Jack must have run a scan on her with the TARDIS and reactivated the chest unit remotely. Or he had done it manually and made sure that her clothes would still cover her. He had always been a good understanding and clever friend behind all the flirting attitude. She was glad to have him by her side right now.

The other person in the room was someone she knew too, someone she hadn’t expected to see ever again. She was wearing one of uniforms special field agents during their mission. A police officer, but not just any police officer: it was Yasmin Khan, the Doctor’s dear friend who had been pretty obvious in her feelings for the Time Lord, something she couldn’t help her with.

“Why do you mean ‘she never made it back’?”

Her voice was shaking and she hated herself for that. Why was it so unsteady? Why was she trembling and sweating and dizzy? Jack was explaining it as a simple lack of different vitamins and body components her blood couldn’t have synthesise during her stay in prison because she wasn’t given what she needed, and anyway, her hearts were too weak to transport these necessary components to her whole body. He tried to force her to lay back down but she wouldn’t obey. She had been vulnerable enough in the last few weeks.

“Longer hair suits you nicely,” replied Yaz. “I liked the red strand a lot.”

“Couldn’t exactly have it dye again. Where is she?”

“I can fix that for you. You wouldn’t say no to a warm shower and a good meal. The Captain’s an excellent cook.”

Jack bowed to thank Yaz for her compliment and she understood that there would be no answers to her questions until she accepted to be taken care of. She could perfectly take care of herself, but pacing around a small prison cell and sleeping on the cold hard ground hadn’t been helpful for her body. Plus, she had been under oxygenated for months and her system was getting used to work to a 100%. She was lightheaded, almost as if she had been drugged with pure oxygen after apnoea.

“How did you find my TARDIS?”

The question had jumped to her mind suddenly. It was the original Doctor’s or the Master’s. It was hers, and hers only. How could they have found it when she had left it in her parallel world? Her faithful little phone box. Her magnificent police box.

“It came to me shortly after the events of Gallifrey,” replied Yaz. “I thought it was the Doctor coming back. Turned out it was an empty TARDIS. I didn’t tell Ryan and Graham. They were mourning, thinking she was dead, oblivious that you were locked away somewhere.”

“I followed the signal and found the two girls. We made plans to get you out and here we are.”

So her TARDIS had gone for help. She doubted her ship had done it on her own. Someone must be behind that. The Doctor? Could it be that instead of being caught by the Judoons, she had tricked them and was wandering freely around the universe? Jumping from one world to another? No. It would be irresponsible. It would be dangerous. It would be stupid.

She finally yielded to her not so new friends and accepted to take care of herself with a bit of help. Just a tiny bit. She wasn’t impotent. She could take care of herself on her own. Yaz accompanied her to her bedroom, to her en-suite. She let herself sink in a warm bath for a long moment. She avoided looking at herself, at the scars, at the tattoos, at the metallic case inserted in her chest. Waterproof technology of course. Cybermen wouldn’t be the frightening army it was if water could short-circuit them. She was avoiding to let her arm soak in soapy water though. Usually, she preferred short showers but months spent in a cell and a sore body had her wishing for a long hot bath.

“Doctor?”

She blinked. The water was cold around her body. Her skin was all wrinkled and her teeth were chattering. She had lost herself in her thoughts and guesses and had let the water turn cold. It was apparently more than enough time for humans to worry about her still being locked in the bathroom. She griped the edge of the tub with her hand and tried to pick herself up. She only managed to slip and splash the ground with water. She swore, and the knocking on the door was concerned now.

“I’m fine!” she barked.

Last thing she wanted was to have a human coming in and finding her completely bare. It wasn’t Jack behind the door – thankfully – it was Yaz checking on her. Why were they so worried about her? She wasn’t their Doctor, not the one they had been looking for in the last few months. She was a temporary copy. A rough draft. A messed-up prototype.

“She used to say that too. And then, she died from Praxeus, and she has seen the ravages done to Gallifrey. She has been tortured by the Master. And obviously, she was ‘fine’ too.”

She was taken aback by the sad and hurt tone of the human behind the door. She was always so oblivious to the companions’ feelings. It was better than to actually see what she was doing to them. What Yaz was feeling for the Doctor was the same as Jack, the same as Martha, the same as Rose: she had been infatuated by the Time Lord, by the novelty and strangeness and alien-ness. This reveal struck her, and she allowed the human to come in to help her.

She hadn’t taken the time to wash herself, to scrub the dirt from her body. Neither had she taken the time to wash her messy hair, to untangle it. Yaz did this wonderfully, without second thoughts. It took nearly an hour and a refill of the bath with hot water for her to be totally clean. It felt weird to be taken care of for once. Never had she let a human companion be so close of her.

No word was spoken during that time. Not until she was fully dressed in clean and fitting clothes – not surprisingly the TARDIS had provided her with black jeans, a white shirt, a black waistcoat and yellow suspenders. She didn’t say anything about the fancy socks she would never have worn in other circumstances, nor about the battered brown boots with broken shoelaces. And there also was a kit of colouring. Red colouring. Just enough for a strand of hair.

“Who has done this to you?”

The voice was soft but prying. They had known for her face device, for her cyber arm but she had kept her chest unit a secret to herself. No one needed to know how much she had been upgraded. The Cybermite, the Cyber arm, she had done that to herself but her hearts…

“I did.”

Her own voice was soft, but trembling. She was holding back her emotions. She wouldn’t break down. Not now. Not ever. She couldn’t. She had to hold on. Hold on until her mission was achieved.

“I had to survive until this very day, but the war damaged me. I did what I could. I wasn’t meant to stay this long.”

A hand on her shoulder. A squeeze. She was thankful to the human not to ask further questions, to be satisfied by this made up answer.

x

Jack was long done with the hot meal when Yaz and the CyberDoctor finally entered the kitchen. He grinned wildly at the blonde. She looked much better now that she had had access to a shower. He was ready to give her his best Captain Jack Harkness’ flirt line but her glare had him looking away with a chuckle.

She was silent during all the meal, much to her companions’ annoyance since they were trying to get something of her. They were making jokes, speaking non-sense just to take away her grumpy mood but she wasn’t blind, nor stupid. They had gotten her out of her cell so she would do the miracle of finding their friend again. Except she didn’t have all the cards this time. She couldn’t do anything for them.

Gallifrey? They had tried already. The TARDIS wouldn’t land anywhere near the planet and flying around its orbit was the best she could do. The Death Particle had been used and it was reckless to take any form of life close to this dead planet in particular. The Doctor was either dead for good, or she was hiding somewhere else.

Of course, it was sad. Unexpected too. Maybe taking her place in that prison cell changed more things than it was supposed to. Had she sacrificed herself? No. She wouldn’t have become Death. She wouldn’t have become _him_. She wasn’t the one meant to do that. Someone was supposed to take her place once again. There was always someone stepping in to stop her from doing some things, even if they sounded right. Even if they _were_ right.

Anyway, she couldn’t find her, nor could she **_replace_** her. They would be disappointed if that was what they expected from her. She wasn’t **_their_** Doctor, didn’t want to be their Doctor. She had suffered enough. She couldn’t be taken seriously with what she had done to herself, to her body. She had outstayed her welcome in this world, in this existence.

She rushed to her bedroom as soon as the two humans had their backs on her. After months of solitude, being surrounded by people was exhausting. She collapsed on the soft mattress she had definitely missed during her jail time, gasped when a consistent object collided with her side. She sneaked a hand under to catch the thing at fault: a sort of crystal that reacted to her touch. It glowed orange.

“Touch-activated. If you see this, it means my friends have gotten you out of the cell you’ve unfairly been locked in.”

The voice was familiar. More than familiar actually. It was **_her_** voice talking to her. The crystal displays an image, a hologram of the Doctor, the original Doctor, in her signature outfit, looking fine, **_smiling_** and ready to deliver the message she had recorded for her imperfect copy to listen to…


	4. Chapter 4

Maya Carson owned a large property surrounding by the Dalby Forest in the North Yorkshire. This wasn’t a family abode she had inherited from her parents after they passed; nor it wasn’t a family territory that had been bought a long time ago. This large parcel of land had been hers for more times than she could remember. She just had invented a whole family history to hide the fact that she was the same person that bought it a few centuries ago. She was pretending to be the descendant of the Carson, a family that had never existed before she created it to give herself a believable past with roots deeply anchored in the history of Earth, a planet that had welcomed her in the hard times she had gone through over thirty years ago, before the birth of her only daughter, Olivia, before the whole mess the Doctor had brought with her four years ago.

Maya was no human. She had picked Earth for her new life only because she had made friends here. She was born on Shifterz, light years away from Earth, the home planet of the majority of what people called shapeshifters. There were different species of shapeshifters and Maya happened to belong to the oldest species ever discovered in the history of this universe. She didn’t remember much of her old planet, and the few memories she could have were all stained with despise, anger and betrayal. This planet must have been home to her in her early days of life, but these were the memories she had been too young to keep carved in her memory. On that point, most species were working the same: you could not remember your first years in life. How sad for her since she was convinced all her happy memories were located in that period.

She was barely seven when she saw them for the first time. The Time Lords. Well, a certain division of the Time Lords, a division she wished to never have met: the highest members of the Quiston Calcium Assassins. She was part of the hundreds of children that were sold to them that day with the promise of exceptional destinies. What a lie. Their destiny turned out to be separated into different groups according to several criteria: age, gender, shifting abilities, strength, character, speed, intelligence, ability to adapt a new situation, emotional responses and the list went on and on. Once they had been sorted out, they were put through an intense lethal training that was ending only when they were branding their new recruits on the back of their neck. This brand meant that they were part of this division, that they had passed all the tests, and become the most dangerous assassins of the universe.

You would think that those intense trainings that were depriving you from a normal life, education, relationships with people, that were wiping out everything that looked like an emotion or a feeling, that made a living robot of you, would be the perfect way to turn you into the heartless, efficient killer the Quiston Calcium Assassins were seeking but Maya learnt the hard way that there was another step to this training: a soldier had to be invincible and for that to become a truth, they changed the DNA of the ordinary shapeshifters to something superior. They had taken the particular genes of a _child_ – if they still were capable of emotions, they would have been outraged – and embedded them into Shifters DNA so that their new warriors would have the whole advantages of Time Lords genes combined to their shapeshifters’ genes.

Only then were they assigned to their first missions and gradually became the most fearful organisations throughout the universe. Maya had incredible scores that were beating each record ever made beyond the members. She was quickly pushed forward, led toward the higher spheres of the organisation. That was where she met Oliver, one of the founders of Shifterz, but also one of Quiston’s. He had been the first one to be experimented on and ‘improved’ on the base of his own voluntarism. Oliver was her first mistake: she fell for him, opened a door in her heart for love. She befriended with the person she was achieving the most missions with: a shapeshifter called Livia who was an exceptional liar; she was lying about her emotions she had never managed to completely shut down, and Maya inexplicably chose to cover her for all their time in Quiston’s ranks.

She learnt that she was pregnant with Oliver’s child. Beside her husband, Livia was the only person she wanted to know about this baby growing inside her, messing with her hormones and emotions, and about the couple’s plans to run away from Gallifrey to raise this kid far far away from Quiston and their particular rules about children born from the union of their members; but her only friend was nowhere to be seen and Oliver broke the news later to her that she had been killed on her latest mission, that Gallifrey had witnessed one of their members flying away in a stolen TARDIS and that it had created such a mess no one would notice it if they took their own TARDIS and flew away. Maya was in such rage and pain over the loss of her friend, about Gallifrey and Quiston that she ravaged the whole organisation and killed all members of the high authority but one before taking Oliver’s offer.

They had settled down in this lovely and deserted part of England where they attempted to live a perfectly normal life. One of them was trying harder than the other in this new step of their relationship: Oliver fast realised that he wasn’t meant for a normal human life. He shut himself away, became distant, rude, became full of contained fury until he lashed out on her. This was the point of no return for poor Maya who only desired a better life for the baby growing inside her belly, a baby she was dedicated herself to. It was a girl. Her TARDIS was closely watching her pregnancy and Maya was reading every report to make sure every was fine. None of them was indicating the gender of the baby but she just _knew_. It was a certitude, and this was another detail annoying her husband. Maybe the last straw.

One day as Maya came back from one of her restorative naps after Oliver once again had a go at her, she was caught off guard by her husband who hadn’t calmed down an inch. The mad fury swirling in his eyes had left no doubt on what he intended to do: she had become too sensitive, too kind, and he couldn’t accept that the best assassin of their generation could become so soft, could go to waste in a snap of fingers; all along he had wished for them to go back to their former life of cold hearted killers. Earth was always in search of some hitmen and they were more than qualified for the job. Maya, though, had been honest with him: this life was over for her, she wanted her baby girl to have a quiet kind of normal life away from all the blood that could be shed by individuals like they used to be. She was growing feelings, becoming receptive to emotions all around her, rediscovering what it felt like to have some humanity in herself. A gift from her baby.

She wasn’t given a choice: it was either her life or his, and she wasn’t betting her life and her baby’s on a fight against the first Quiston’s assassin. She was eight months pregnant, her moves were limited, her body demanded rest and calm but she still had her reflexes, they were just slower which was a clear disadvantage for her, especially since she was protecting her baby bump more than herself. She would take Oliver down with her, but she wanted her daughter to survive all of this, to have a chance at life. It was when she was found herself pinned to the ground with Oliver straddling her and his hands crushing her windpipe that she understood this last wish wouldn’t even be fulfilled. A few weeks later, she would have been born, but today, her Olivia was denied the right to live by her own father. It was the sudden thought of her baby as Olivia, an homage to her dead friend Livia, that gave Maya the energy she needed to overpower Oliver and get rid of him once and for all.

Maya didn’t cry. She didn’t cry when she ended his life, when the light in his eyes was switched off, when his body went limp in her arms. She didn’t cry when she put a bullet to his head and burnt his body and all his belongings like they had been trained to do. Of him, she only kept the wedding ring he had placed around her finger when they got married. She didn’t cry either when she sat alone in her TARDIS, all in bruises and cuts and bloody wounds, when she set coordinates for the house of a couple of trustworthy friends – they also had secrets to keep as they were a forbidden relationship between a witch (him) and a werewolf (her) – she had met when she settled down on Earth with Oliver. They welcomed her in their house as a family member, never asked questions as to why she was in such a rough condition, helped her to recover, helped her to give birth to Olivia.

The little girl happened to be different from both her parents. Her DNA was half Gallifreyan half Shifterz and she physically looked more like her mother – a relief to Maya who didn’t need a living reminder of her dead husband, the nightmares were enough – but she was different in the fact that she had been gifted with empathy. Unlike her mother who had to be taught how to feel every emotion all over again – it was easier when Olivia and her were sharing the same body and so, the same gift – she could feel her own emotions and was receptive to everyone else’s. A gift that could also be a curse at such a young age when you were surrounded with people living secret lives and when the inevitable happened, when the secret relationship gave birth to a little girl half werewolf, half witch, it only took a couple months for everything to go south.

After the assassination of her beloved friends, after placing their daughter, Katlyn, to safety like they had asked her to if anything happened to them, Maya flee back to England, back to her territory where she would stay with Olivia. She discreetly kept a close eye on the growing Katlyn who was a couple years younger than Olivia and focused entirely on helping her daughter to grow up and become the amazing woman she was now – even if she sometimes refused to see her as a grown-up woman. For once, life had given her a gift and she was cherishing it with all she had. She was exceptional and had survived so much at such a young age. Of course, she was told that her father was dead but not that her mother had killed him – she was far too sensitive for such a story – and she knew everything about Katlyn that she considered as her younger sister.

Four years ago, Maya was investigating on the exceptional increase in the rate of shapeshifters on Earth when she found Maxence Spitz in an asylum, a man who was full of surprises. She had brought him on her territory, had fought to keep safe when he wanted to run away in the farther lost place he would find, had fought with him when he found out that his violent father had been there too and had been killed by Maya herself when he tried to rape her daughter when she was fifteen – lethal mistake. She had reunited him with the best friend he had left behind months ago and revealed the true nature of Rose Peters who was a natural shapeshifter but also his soulmate. She had helped him in this new chapter of this life, had helped him controlling his new nature, had offered him a home in her own house, had protected him, and reasoned him and despite all of that, he was still surprising her.

The man had met the Doctor, one of the most wanted targets in the Quiston organisation, someone Maya had been ordered to kill, and they both had travelled together. Their last destination had been Shifterz where he was abducted, experimented on and brainwashed to also be after the Doctor, but the latter had saved him before they could go to the end of the brainwash and as soon as he found the chance to, he ran away from the TARDIS and hid, forcing the Doctor to look for him before he could cause damages on Earth. Maya found him first and the Doctor found them later when the TARDIS dropped her on Maya’s territory after she had been hunted down by mercenaries. Maxence and Maya had to fight off their killing instincts toward the Time Lady and have it annihilated by the telepathically talented Katlyn who came to Maya’s property for protection after she had been targeted and defeated by the same mercenaries that were after the Doctor.

That was a couple days later, while they were all recovering from the attack of the mercenaries, that she found out that the Doctor was looking for Maxence not only because she was worried about him, because she was blaming herself for what had happened to him, but also because she was heavily pregnant with his children. During the short time they had travelled together, they also had gotten sexually involved long enough to start of family and create the mess of a love triangle. Obviously, this had caused quite a mess in the already weakened relationship between Rose and Maxence: the first felt hurt beyond words and the second felt betrayed and deceived. Rose was blaming the Doctor for taking her friend away and seducing him, and she was blaming Maxence for playing the game and thinking about her when he was fucking another woman.

It wasn’t easy either for the Doctor who had to handle the end of her pregnancy on her own and faced all the fears and challenges to be a woman, as well as the struggles to be a mother. This whole process was new to her – Time Lords didn’t procreate; they used a technology called ‘loom’ – being a female was just as new. Thankfully, Maxence didn’t reject his responsibilities and immediately accepted the twins as his and became a father to them, much to Rose’s hurt and jealousy. Once again, the Doctor had taken something that was supposed to be hers. So Maya had had to deal with her past coming back to haunt her, the training of Rose and Maxence to control themselves and the Doctor’s motherhood. She thankfully could count on the help of Katlyn for the trainings. She was a natural at it with her _Wolf Academy_.

It had taken months for the situation to reach a certain balance. After a rough time where she suffered a postpartum depression, the Doctor got better and developed a strong bond with her children and a healthy relationship with Rose and Maxence. The fact that she wanted nothing of him but friendship and a father for their twins helped a lot. He was happy to oblige. The Time Lady started travelling again after that, after her children turned one. She never stayed away for too long and always came back after an adventure or two to visit them all. They all gathered around a feast in the living-room to tell them all about the universe about the new friends they would never meet. She was making sure to keep her travelling life and family life to keep them safe. It was her key word and the reason why she was never staying around for too long. There were people after her all the time and she refused to have them using the persons she loved most against her. She would never recover from the loss of any of them. They were her exceptional and mismatched family.

When the Doctor came back in a deep state of shock and defeated, Maya understood that something was not right. When she spent most of her time alone fiddling with the TARDIS – Maya’s property had the chance to be remote but also to be placed on a temporal rift that was necessary for their ships’ refuelling – or playing with the twins and not talking about her latest adventures, it was confirmed that something was not right. Maya got the final word of the matter one night when the Time Lady was lying alone in the grass and watching the stars that weren’t quite the same as the ones in her world. Maya had lain down beside her and silently watched the sky with her. It wasn’t the first time they were doing so and the two of them had grown so close that the Doctor knew she could trust Maya with absolutely everything.

Her hand found Maya’s and held it tight. Sometimes they were being intimate. Friendship with benefits it was called. It was perfect for the two of them. Her eyes remained on the starry sky as she unveiled the burden on her hearts. She told Maya about the return of her forever frenemy, how he had dragged her on Gallifrey that he had completely destroyed, about him slaughtering all the Time Lords and turning their bodies into CyberMasters, about the Timeless Child – keeping for herself that she might be that child – about Praxeus, about the CyberDoctor coming to save her from the dead. She had added that this imperfect copy of her was rotting somewhere in the universe, that she had taken her place. She should be in the cell instead of laying there in the grass with all of her family sleeping in the house a few feet away from her. She felt guilty but also felt the irresistible need to get her out of that cell and offer her a new life along with her freedom.

Consequently, in the weeks that followed this talk, both of them spent their time building plans when the Doctor wasn’t busy with the twins. They placed clues in the Doctor’s world, changed tiny details in a couple people’s timelines, traced a path for her companions to follow and deliver the CyberDoctor from her cell It was meticulously planned. Every detail had been double-checked before the final moment. Maya dropped the message on the CyberDoctor’s tray of food when Jack Harkness and Yasmin Khan were dressed as Judoons and discussing the terms of the prisoner’s freedom. She modified this detail. Made sure Yasmin Khan would be the one coming for the CyberDoctor’s transfer – Captain Jack was well known for his mischiefs – after she talked to the Judoons and won the arguments about the prisoner’s health, about her dying and that it would be better for her to die in a specialised establishment than in this cell. Just to think about the paperwork…

The Doctor was in charge of finding her twin’s TARDIS and making sure Jack would find it, he was the only one wo could drive it. Before leaving the ship, she left the crystal with the recorded message in the main bedroom, and after that, Maya and her went back to Maya’s world to wait for the end of this improbable plan. A plan that worked. The Doctor should give more credit to plans. Sometimes, they went just fine.

The twins, aged five now, ran out of the house as soon as they heard the familiar wheezing groaning sound of a TARDIS materialising. Just like everyone living here, they had been informed that new friends were coming. They were overexcited at idea. The Doctor, not so much. She was anxious to the point of biting her nails to blood and having Maya lecture her and fixing the mess. She caught her long coat, wrapped herself in it and gathered her long hair in a ponytail. She walked to where her children were bouncing. Maya joined them as a lovely little house with a white fence appeared on the grass. Captain Jack Harkness was the first one to step out. He waved at them with a bright smile. The Doctor rolled her eyes. He could be so flirtatious with such little things. Yaz followed. A mix of shock, sadness, disbelief and anger crossed her face as the CyberDoctor finally came out.

The twins were unhappy with their mother whose hands were strongly holding their shoulders and preventing them from running to the newcomers that were walking toward them. They managed to get free just before a fist connected with the Doctor’s nose sending her, bottom first, in the grass, her face covered in blood. She pressed a hand to her bleeding nose as Maya stood before her, teeth and claws out and ready to fight, as Jack seized Yaz by the waist to stop her from hurting the Doctor more.

“You left us thinking you were dead! We thought you were fucking dead! We were mourning you! You have abandoned us behind and left us thinking that you were dead and gone while you were living your best life! What kind of friend are you?”

It hurt but the Doctor understood her reaction. She had expected it. The twins were greeting the CyberDoctor who didn’t say a word. She was all too surprised by the revelation that had struck her. She moved toward the shapeshifter and the Doctor.

“The kind of friend who has learnt life-changing news, the kind of friend who needs time to process and get better after an ordeal instead of inflicting her mood to everyone around her.”

The CyberDoctor gave her twin a prying look. She was the only one to know the story behind this sudden disappearance and she also was quite angry at the fact the Doctor had been messing around while someone else was paying the price of her mistakes in a remote cell. She owed her explanations and the Time Lady silently acquiesced. It was unusual of her to be so quiet. Maya returned to her normal self and stepped aside. Jack released Yaz from his hold, Yaz who paced around furiously to calm herself down and face the Doctor again. Ayla was fascinated by Jack. Both Maya and the Doctor were observing him attentively as he knelt down to match the kid’s height.

“Mom says you’re a womanizer.”

“She must have heard it from the Doctor. She’s the only one who know me well enough to say that.”

He gently tapped on her nose before going to the Doctor. He wrapped her in a tight embrace, placed his hands on her shoulders and stepped back to have a proper look at her before he snogged her. He gasped at the knee meeting his stomach and backed away with a grin. The Doctor glared at him. The CyberDoctor rolled her eyes. Maya was ready to rip his balls off if he tried with her or with any member of her extended mismatched family.

“Are you alright, mummy?”

Dexter was tugging on the Doctor’s hand, worried about the blood on her face. Two heads turned suddenly toward her and she felt rather uncomfortable to be the centre of attention for once. The Doctor picked up her son to reassure him. She owed explanations to everyone now.

They were gathered around the table of the living-room to discuss. The Doctor was sat opposite Yaz, Maya was sat beside the Time Lady and facing Jack, the CyberDoctor was sat beside him. The twins were there too. Ayla’s was on Maya’s lap, Dexter on her mother’s as usual. Olivia had made a brief appearance to provide them with drinks and snacks. Jack had ogled her and won a kick in the leg from the Doctor.

“Let’s be clear, Captain Jack,” threatened Maya. “If you dared laying your perverted hands on my daughter, or on anyone living on my territory, I will personally make sure to deprive you from your masculine family jewels.”

The two Doctors and Yaz giggled at the threat but only one Doctor knew that Maya was serious. Jack better behave if he was staying around or she would lose more than his precious family jewels. Maya was a ‘former’ assassin for the Quiston Calcium Assassins. She could kill anyone before they realised it.

Once Jack promised to behave – with a warm smile – the Doctor told everything to the newcomers. After the Timeless Child events, after the Master’s return and death, she had felt emotionally and physically drained and had needed time to recover before taking the CyberDoctor’s place in jail. And then, she had decided to save the person who had saved her and sacrificed herself for her. All of this while spending time with her family that were the source of her usually natural joy and wonder.

No one touched the snacks while she was speaking. No one but the twins. Dexter was always offering biscuits to her mother but she was declining the offer. Under the table, she was holding Maya’s hand for courage.

“Why haven’t you told us? Graham, Ryan, me. We would have understood.”

Her chest tightened at the evocation of her former companions. She had been surprised not to see Graham or Ryan step out of the TARDIS. They had mourned her and they had moved on, just like they should have done. However, Yaz had never abandoned the hope of her being alive somewhere in the universe and had teamed up with Jack to find her. Maya must have known, somehow.

“I have to keep them safe,” sighed the Doctor. “My pregnancy… was an accident. When I was leaving you with your family and friends in Sheffield, I was travelling on my own. At some point, I ended up in this world and got curious. I explored, I travelled with a man and, well… humans do that all the time.”

“Doctor, you naughty girl!” smirked Jack.

“Remember how unwell I was on the Tsurunga? I ran tests on myself shortly after we were back to the TARDIS. That’s when I found out I was pregnant. My only priority has always been to keep my children safe.”

“But… we were with you most of the time. How could we not have noticed? I mean, the baby bump.”

“Time Lord trick.”

Yaz was still angry deep down, but she still reached for the Doctor’s hand who purposely keep hers out of reach. Dexter tried to feed her with a biscuit again, and she refused once again. The Doctor who could never resist a custard cream was now refusing a custard cream.

“So… every time you went away on your own… you were here?”

“Yes. After every adventure, I come back to them and tell them all about it, about my new friends. They help me to cope with everything I see, to recover from everything I go through.”

“But you never told us about them.”

“Safety purpose. A lot of people are after me. If they knew I had a family, where do you think they would have gone first to draw my attention? I wouldn’t recover if they were hurt.”

She managed to keep her voice steady and Maya squeezed her hand to comfort her. She was the only one to know how she really felt and how hard she was working to keep her emotions under control. Jack was smirking again and let out a comment that had everyone glaring at him.

“Mom will spank you!” exclaimed Ayla.

“I’d love to be spa¾”

A double kick in his legs stopped him from finishing this sentence but didn’t erase the smile from his lips. The Doctors could hit him as much as they wanted, he wouldn’t stop imagining what he was imagining right now. And the Doctor was thankful for his intervention. Now they could change the subject to the CyberDoctor. Well, almost.

“There are some interesting specimens on your territory,” commented the twin.

“Interesting indeed.”

“Captain, one more comment and I’m kicking you out. As for the specimens, they have better places to be at the moment. Official introductions are for later.”

There was some noise and all the curious gathered behind an ajar door suddenly were gone from the Captain’s sight. Maya had sensed them of course but no one else seemed to have noticed them until then. They had better things to do than spying on them.

“What about me?” asked the CyberDoctor. “What’s my part in all of this? I should be gone.”

“I couldn’t let that happen,” admitted the Doctor. “Not after what you did for me.”

The CyberDoctor pouted. She would have been perfectly fine if she hadn’t existed at all and the Doctor certainly knew that. So why had she decided to mess up with Time and make her a fixed point, to extend her life to an unknown extent?

The focus was on the CyberDoctor now so Yaz took that time to observe her friend. The Doctor was the same and was so different all at once. Motherhood looked fine on her. She still had her terrible fashion tastes. Her hair was longer and tied in a ponytail. Her face expressed maturity and seriousness. She had shown such expressions before, but they were terrifying. Here, it made her look more at peace with herself. It felt strange to see her like this.

“I wouldn’t have known what life was. What all of this was. I simply wouldn’t have existed.”

“I know. And I still couldn’t get my head around it. It wouldn’t have been fair. And I grew attached to you, so I shared my idea with Maya.”

“I tried to talk her out of that idea.”

“Yet, you allowed me here. On your territory.”

“She’s convincing.”

“Yeah. I would have done the exact same. That’s in our genetic code.”

“I don’t belong to this world,” sadly admitted the Doctor. “As much as I’d love to so I could stay with my kids, I just can’t. I have to jump back every now and then and save the universe. But I can’t keep them out of my mind when I’m running head first into danger:”

“Understandable.”

“But you have nowhere to go to. Your world doesn’t exist anymore, and…”

“Go straight to the point.”

“This world needs a Doctor,” said Maya. “No one but me is defending this planet, this universe and it’s too much for one person alone. The Doctor suggested that you stayed here to protect this world while she’s gone. You could settle down with your TARDIS on my property and travel all you want. We would be your place to return to whenever you need a break. Your family.”

The CyberDoctor pondered on the offer for a moment. It seemed fair. Instead of disappearing, she was giving another chance at life, a new world to explore and a family. She was pretty unfamiliar with the family thingy but she would gladly keep the Doctor’s family safe. She was given a chance at happiness after a life of ordeals. Who was she to refuse this?

She accepted the offer. The Doctor would go back to her original universe after months away – time was passing differently according to the universe, years here were months there – with Jack and Yaz and go back to her life, keeping her family hidden and her mind at peace because they would all be in safe hands…


End file.
